Over the past few weeks, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg has made one thing very clear: he is in charge of the future of WordPress.
Mullenweg runs WordPress.com and its parent company, Automattic. He is the owner of the WordPress.org project and even heads the non-profit foundation that controls the WordPress brand. To the outside observer, these might look like independent organizations, all separately designed around the WordPress open source project. But while waging a battle against WP Engine, a third-party WordPress hosting service, Mullenweg has blurred the lines between three essential entities that lead a sprawling ecosystem that powers nearly half of the web.
For Mullenweg, that's all fine and dandy, as long as it supports the long-term health of WordPress.
“WordPress.org belongs to me personally,” Mullenweg said during an interview with The edge. WordPress.org exists outside Automattic's scope of business, as an independent publishing platform that offers free access to its open source code that people can use to create their own websites. But it is not a neutral and independent arbiter of the ecosystem. “In my role as the owner of WordPress.org, I don't want to promote a company, which is A: legally threatening me and B: using the WordPress trademark. “That’s part of the reason we cut off access to the servers.”
“That's true: we are putting pressure on them”
Mullenweg's dispute with WP Engine is developing in different directions. He has criticized WP Engine for not dedicating enough time and money to developing the open source WordPress ecosystem. saying that if you gave him $1 to the WordPress Foundation, “you'd be a bigger donor than WP Engine.” And Mullenweg has raised the possibility that WP Engine “hacked” Automatic's proprietary WooCommerce plugin to collect commissions going to Automattic, which WP Engine has denied. From those arguments, the fight seems to be about what is and what is not appropriate in the world of open source software.
But Mullenweg has since put those arguments aside to argue that WP Engine – and its “pirated and bastard drills” of WordPress open source code, as he describes it, infringes Automattic's trademark: WordPress.
“The analogy I made is that they got Al Capone because of the taxes,” Mullenweg says. “So if a company made $500 million from WordPress and contributed about $100,000 a year, yes, I'd be trying to get them to contribute more.” WP Engine competes directly with the hosting services offered by Automattic and WordPress.com, and Mullenweg maintains that one of the reasons for its success is the use of “WordPress” throughout its site. “That's why we're using that legal avenue to really, yeah, put pressure on them. It's true: we are putting pressure on them.”
Mullenweg began his public pressure campaign during a WordPress conference last month, telling people to “vote with your wallet” and stop supporting WP Engine. He then I called service a “cancer” for the WordPress ecosystem. Mullenweg eventually WP engine blocked from WordPress.org servers, leaving WP Engine customers unable to install themes, plugins, and updates.
The decision to shut down WP Engine also put other WordPress projects in a precarious position. WordPress is open source and free to use, with no obligation to give anything in return. But Mullenweg has made it clear that there are certain requirements that successful projects must meet to stay off Automattic's radar.
“I'm happy to provide WordPress.org services to literally every other host,” says Mullenweg. There is “no requirement to give back.” “WordPress will be open source forever and ever, so there will never be any legal requirement to give back.” But WordPress still “requests” that companies contribute something. “It's better for WordPress if they give back.”
For WP Engine, it comes down to this: Mullenweg wants the company to contribute to WordPress, either by paying to license the WordPress brand or by participating in the WordPress open source project.
Although the WordPress Foundation controls the platform's trademark, the commercial rights to that trademark are licensed to Automattic. That means Automattic can charge other companies to use the WordPress brand for commercial purposes, and that's where Mullenweg has been able to put pressure on WP Engine.
“What they are doing is not right. It's not that they call it WP; is that they are using the WordPress brand in a confusing way,” Mullenweg said. He x.com/photomatt/status/1841644271939604628″>cited the “frantic changes” that he claims WP Engine visited their site to remove mentions of “WordPress” after the dispute began. under the WordPress Foundation Trademark PoliciesBusinesses may use the WordPress name and logo to “refer to and explain their services.”
The foundation says the abbreviation “WP” is not covered by its trademarks, but the guidelines were recently amended to say that companies should stop using the abbreviation in “a way that confuses people.” During The edgeIn the interview, Mullenweg confirmed that he changed the foundation's trademark policies to include a “dig at WP Engine.” The policy now says that WP Engine “never made a donation to the WordPress Foundation, despite generating billions of revenue on top of WordPress.”
This week, Automattic released its proposed resolution to the dispute: a seven-year deal that would require WP Engine to pay an 8 percent fee on all revenue to use Automattic's WordPress and WooCommerce brands or compensate employees who would contribute. to WordPress. open source project. The deal was offered in late September, but Mullenweg He says it's off the table. due to “WP Engine's behavior, deceit, and incompetence.”
The dispute culminated in a lawsuit in which WP Engine accuses Automattic and Mullenweg of extortion. WP Engine alleges that Mullenweg said he would proceed with a “scorched earth nuclear approach” after the two failed to reach an agreement. “When WPE refused to capitulate to Automattic's astronomical and exorbitant monetary demands, Mullenweg made good on his threats,” says WP Engine. “The threat of 'war' became a multi-pronged attack, part of an overall plan to extract payments from WPE.”
In the lawsuit, WP Engine claims that Mullenweg is attempting to “take advantage of the chaos he caused” by announce a deal to switch to Pressable, another WordPress host owned by Automattic. The filing also includes an alleged job offer from Mullenweg to WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner, saying that if she declines to join Automattic, he would tell the CEO of Silver Lake, the private equity firm that owns WP Engine. WP Engine referred us to the lawsuit when asked for comment.
WordPress CEO Josepha Haden Chomphosy x.com/JosephaHaden/status/1841793834931397070″>has since left Automatticalong with more than 150 other employees who accepted Mullenweg's offer to leave for $30,000 or six months' salary, whichever is greater, if they did not support his fight against WP Engine.
More importantly, WP Engine's lawsuit raises concerns about corporate overreach, alleging that Mullenweg's actions reflect “a clear abuse of his conflicting roles” at the WordPress Foundation, Automattic, and the WordPress open source project. In a statement on ThursdayAutomattic called the lawsuit “baseless” and added that it denies WP Engine's allegations, “which are mischaracterizations of reality.”
Whatever the outcome of the legal case, it has become clear that Mullenweg does control WordPress.org. But its fight with WP Engine has only made the line between WordPress and Automattic murkier, casting a shadow of uncertainty over the open source community that has long supported it. That seems to be a risk Automattic is willing to take as long as WordPress emerges victorious.
